This report is the product of a planning grant awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2001 to the Tri-College Library Consortium, which comprises the libraries of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. The grant proposal, entitled “Library Buildings and the Building of a Collaborative Research Collection at the Tri-Colleges,” set out a research agenda designed to address two central questions. The first question was a challenge: How could the three libraries come to terms with space problems caused by ever-growing collections and increasing demands to accommodate media, teaching, and student study areas in an environment in which library building expansion was a remote possibility? The second question was an opportunity: Could the libraries take advantage of their history of cooperation and the powerful tool of a unified online catalog to create a single research-quality collection out of the combined holdings of three strong liberal arts colleges?

Working with a consultant, a seven-member Planning Group representing the three colleges and the consortium gathered data on the collections, convened focus groups of faculty and students, and engaged three publishing industry experts to assess the state of electronic publishing. After analyzing the data, the Planning Group studied alternatives for maximizing collection space and made recommendations for new models and strategies to be pursued by the Tri-Colleges consortium.

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